Independent East Hyde Park Grocery

serving fresh produce, dry goods, beer and wine

Paying off our LendSquare loan

As long-time customers (or blog readers) will remember, two summers ago we borrowed $7,000 to finance a new mini-split air conditioning system capable of keeping the store cool in the summer. This keeps our produce fresh, our chocolate unmelted, and even provides our customers with a cool refreshing break from sun-soaked 55th Street every summer.

The loan was not from a bank, it was from our customers and friends through a site called LendSquare. It’s like Kickstarter, but instead of donating money, you are lending it — you get your money back, with interest — and you are lending money to businesses you know and already have a relationship with in your community. We got a very good interest rate (thanks, customers!) and access to capital that traditional banks wouldn’t provide to us. Working with LendSquare has been great every step of the way, and we applaud their efforts to humanize the allocation of capital and remove faceless banks as a middleman in the process of lending money.

Today, 24 monthly payments later, we made our final payment to LendSquare, successfully ending our loan. Now we just need to figure out what project we’re going to finance with LendSquare next!